Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1887-11-12
LIVES OF cENTENARlANs.
Longevity Among Women More Common
Than Among Men.

Longevity Among Women More Common
Than Among Men.
Among the centenarians on our own
list, the intellect is stated to have been
high in eleven and low in five only;
twenty are reported as strong, sixteen of
average strength, and twelve only as
feeble. Several were remarkable for
mental and bodily activity during their
long lives. Many had been engaged in
hardy bodily toll, or mental work, or
successfully in various occupations, and
in different ways had played their parts
effectually on the worlds stage to the
end of the long drama in better plight
than the poet has represented them. I
often wish Shakespeare had lived to give
O brighter version of his seven stages,
and to portray the old man not lean
and slippered but well favored and
booted, keen in life's interest, and happy
in promoting the welfare and enjoyment
of others. Even in the bedridden state,
of which the tables give seven examples
-four males and three females), one of
whom had been bedridden for seven
years, all is not cherries. The quiet
coziness, the even temperature, the free
dom from exposure and the reservation to
the vital organs of nerve energy and
nutritive material, consequent on the
diminished use of the muscular system,
contribute to prolong the lives of feeble
persons who still retain the pleasures Of
intellectual occupation and social inter-
course to say nothing of the enjoyment
of sleep and the qualification of the appe-
tite; and it is curious, though not unfre-
quently to be observed, that persistence
in bed actually increases both sleep and
appetite. Some aged people lie in bed in
the winter, and in the dull routine of the
workhouse many old people drift into
the bedridden state.
In our tables, as usual in records Of
longevity the women preponderate over
the men (thirty-six to Sixteen) il spite Of
the dangers incident to child bearing.
This is obviously, in great measure, to be
attributed to the comparative immunity
of the woman from exposures and risk to
which man is subjected, as well as to her
greater temperance in eating and drink
ing, and her greater freedom from the
anxieties attendant upon the worlds
labor and business. There appears also
to be greater inherent vitality in the
female, as evinced by the fact that, even
in the first year of life, when the con-
ditions and exposures of male and female
infants are the same, the mortality of
girls is less than that of boys. A some
what large number of boys are born,
but they are more difficult to rear, SO
that the females soon take the numerical
lead, and they maintain it with almost
steadily increasing ratio to the end. 1t
Ia also to be learned from the analysis of
the tables that the elasticity Of the thorax,
as evinced by the condition of the costal
cartridges, and its capacity for dilation
during inspiration, is better preserved in
women than in men. In the matter of
the ARGUS senilis also the women have the
advantage; but in the condition of the
arterial system much difference is not
shown.
OF the thirty-six women, twenty-six
had been married and eleven had large
families; and it may be some consolation
to young mothers and their friends to
find that eight of the twenty-six married
before they were 20-one at 16 and two
at II. The dangers, happily diminish
ing which are incidental to child bear
ing, must not DO forgotten; but irrespec-
tive of these, the process itself and the
attendants thereon do not seem to mill
tate against longevity. Indeed, the ca
pacity for the full exercise of this, like
that of the other normal functions, is one
Of the qualities in those who have the
other requisites for attaining to great
age. One only of the married women
was childless; but neither the age at
which she was married nor the duration
of her married life was given.
1t might be anticipated, indeed, from
The matrimonial tendency, and the pro-
life quality evinced by the tables, the
average number of children born to each,
whether male or female, being six, that
there would be, through inheritance, a
gradual increase in the centenarian breed,
and it is probable that this is the case,
and that the duration of life is, from this
end other favoring causes, gradually be-
ing extended. The Life period of the chill
dren we have no means of determining
with accuracy, the returns being from
various causes, imperfect; but we may
safely accredit them with, at least, an
average longevity. 1t is, moreover,
point Of some interest that many of the
centenarians were members of large FAM
Tlies, averaging, indeed, seven or eight;
those designated as "only children" be-